The Daily Dose/January 29, 2019
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy
Leading Off: Where Were You When…
One of the more interesting memories life offers is remembering where you were when you heard that something momentous had happened.
We can still remember in high school being driven home from school by Mr Ludtke when the radio reported the US hockey team had defeated the evil Soviet Union in ice hockey at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York, a result about as unexpected as planetary alignment. Like many others, we can remember where we were when John Lennon was murdered, because we were watching Monday Night Football, too. However, we had the sound down and were listening to Jack Buck and Hank Stram announce the game for CBS Radio on KNX-AM in Los Angeles…The broadcast was interrupted with five tones and I can remember Dad and I looking at each other wondering what had happened because it would have to be something really important to interrupt a football game.
Monday marked the 33rd anniversary of the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger and the deaths of all seven of her astronauts. The explosion was caused by some faulty O-rings in a rocket booster and occurred 73 seconds after liftoff. We remember where we were for this, too. We at sea off the southern California coast on the USS Blueback (SS-581) and I was in the control room standing watch, probably as the helmsman, though it might have been as quartermaster of the watch.
Anyway, a radioman named Scott Brown comes into the control room and announces, with some amazement in his voice, that he didn’t catch the entire broadcast, only the very end, and the last words he’d heard were “they are still searching the Atlantic for survivors”.
Some wrote it off because Brown was a goofball who might have let his imagination get the best of him, but most wondered what the tragedy was. It wasn’t until later that the executive officer, Lieutenant Commander Will Bundy, got on the PA and announced the tragic news.
We can’t remember where we were when we heard that Elvis or Princess Diana died, though.
Today At The Site
The Diary of a Nobody: Sparrow has a routine night at the hotel, gets the trash to the curb a day early while at the retailer, he steals a Frito from Supervisor Maria’s bag and then graciously offers her some when she catches him.
Then Maria came by the service desk and – and this was almost moderately funny – I held out the bag and offered her some of her own Fritos, an act which made Maria laff but went completely over Deya’s head.
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On This Date
In 1980 – The Rubik’s Cube makes its worldwide debut in London. It was invented by a Hungarian named Erno Rubik, who had tested it in his native country in 1977. is 3.47 seconds, by China’s Du Yusheng at a competition last year. People a lot smarter than us have figured out there are approximately 43 quintillion possible combinations for a standard 3×3 rowed Rubik’s Cube.
In 1995 – The San Francisco 49ers defeat the San Diego Chargers 49-26 in Super Bowl XXIX in Miami, becoming the first team to win five Super Bowls. 49ers quarterback Steve Young throws six touchdown passes, establishing a Super Bowl record that still stands. Kathie Lee Gifford sang The Star-Spangled Banner, the halftime show featured Tony Bennett, Patti LaBelle, Arturo Sandoval and the Miami Sound Machine. Al Michaels, Frank Gifford and Dan Dierdorf were the TV announcers and Jack Buck and Hank Stram called the game for CBS Radio. It remains the only Super Bowl played between teams that play their home games in the same state.
In 1977 – Rose Royce is at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with Car Wash, the song’s only week at the top. It was from the soundtrack of the movie of the same name and was the group’s first of three Top 40 hits and remains their only #1 song. The song also went to #1 in Canada and earlier had spent two weeks at the top of Billboard’s soul chart.
Quotebook
It is natural for man to indulge in the illusion of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth…
Patrick Henry
“Give me liberty or give me death” speech to Virginia legislature
3/23/1775
Answer To The Last Trivia Question
Four future members of the College Football Hall of Fame were members of the 1903 University of Chicago football team: head coach Amos Alonzo-Stagg and players Walter Eckersall, Bob Maxwell and Hugo Bezdek, who was elected for his work as a coach later in his career.
Today’s Stumper
How many Super Bowls have been played in Miami? –Answer next time!
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